"allegiance" ( ya missed it by one "e") It is interesting, eh? How us Yanks use the flag at will. I never thought much about it but in everyday life... the Flag permeates our core same as water or air. We live everyday and see the flag everywhere and think nothing of it... It often becomes neutral in our view. Yet, when things go wrong, or tight, or tough... we can easily and readily wrap our mind and hope and love and hand around our flag. You Kiwis need to get that Union Jack thingy off your flag and set up one more national. You have my permission to start the drive. Get the N'Zee-Land flag to look more like your country and not a poor son of the Brits.
the daily anthem and swearing of allegieance (can't spell it)thing in schools really is alien to me as a kiwi... I think there was a point some politician suggested we start a daily flag thing recently and i seem to remember aussie starting it about twenty years back. probably most countries do it I don't know... I'm wondering if gallipoli affected us a hundred years back and we shifted back. The victorians had this darwinian educationalist theory that they (the english) were going soft in their post boom industrialised lifestyle so they consciously changed ours and australias schools to make us warriors to defend the empire. It was as if the colony would breed warrior stock. then wwi and the educationists in old blitey became a bit more soft and lefty maybe cause it was well gone by the time i got to school... as far as I can tell... the upper class poms game of rugby union (rugby league, big in ozzie, is a lower working class construct) is still pretty big here. That's a legacy of victorian control... (as of course is our particular flag with the union jack on it)... We still celebrate our rugby union tours to england back in queen vics day when we beat the poms but they would have been thrilled we were playing their game so well. ahh history. this particular flag has it. nice to see it having a quiet moment. mouldy and loved. :) you yanks and yer flag... i don't know!
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